I Miss Twitter and Now I’m All About Reddit

I used to tell people if I was stranded on a desert island, all I would need to be happy was sufficient food and water… and Twitter. I argued that, with Twitter, I would hardly feel alone or deserted. Good ol’ Twitter was like texting thousands of friends, knowing all the breaking news before the mainstream media could even report it. It was just-enough video and photos to see what was happening and feel like I was there.

Twitter was interactive. People @’d me and I @’d them. We put a . in front of Tweets (can’t remember exactly why). ‘Notficiations’ alerted me when someone commented on my Tweets or a Tweet I had commented on, and I treated ‘Messages’ like text messages or Emails and when I messaged people, they messaged me back.

Twitter was alive. It thrived. It behaved like a newsfeed, like text messages, a little like Facebook, and sometimes like a search engine (I could search by #AmericanIdol or #coffee and scroll forever looking at Tweeted articles and jumping into conversations). Sports reporters and celebrities were there sharing everything. If someone was someone, that someone had to be on Twitter, else they didn’t really exist.

“Did you hear what so-and-so posted on Twitter…”

“According to Twitter, this means that and that’s going to happen…”

Twitter was perfect. It should’ve stayed 140 characters. It should have remained the wild west. That was the thing about Twitter. Everyone said how bad it was. If you followed “bad” things, then it was for you. Me? I followed thought-leaders, self-help gurus, inspiring stuff, people and stuff from my alma mater, Michigan State. I followed brands. I saved hashtags like #coffee and #tidydesk. Sports stories. If you looked at my Twitter feed, I was nowhere near politics and all the anger.

Anything good always has bad parts because the world has bad people who like to be angry and are only happy when they make other people mad. Twitter wasn’t going to solve that.

Twitter is now X and it’s like a party that used to be cool and cool people were there having fun, but now I look around, and the people are still at the party, but nobody is having any fun. Tweeters, which I guess are now called Xrs, still post because if you’re making content, you had better be on X distributing it, but it’s not the same.

I used to check Twitter at least once an hour. I had well curated Lists so I could jump right to what was most important to me in that hour (is “Health” or “Premier League”) and then get out. I never missed anything.

Now? I check a couple times a week. Which isn’t how social media is designed. Check X once a week? May as well not check at all.

So that has brought me to Reddit. I’ve always loved Reddit and respected it was doing things differently but now, I need Reddit to work harder and be my new Twitter. Reddit has Subreddits for almost all my interests, but the only difference is, most posts are from anonymous members (although almost always are links to credible sources) so it’s a little different. I don’t know if Shaq, or a sports columnist, or a coffee expert is posting, but I get the articles.

Reddit it better than “good enough” and I need it to be great. I have too much time to waste. TikTok just wasn’t a place for an old-man like me.

I need Reddit to be “reddy” just in case I’m ever stranded on the remote island and can only have three things …food, Wifi, and Reddit.